Magic In the Making
by EPurSeMouve
Summary: Lights. Camera. Action.


TITLE: Magic in the Making  
AUTHOR: EPurSeMouve [epursemouve@goplay.com]  
CATEGORY: SH   
RATING: PG  
SPOILERS: Up to seventh season, especially for "Hollywood A.D."  
DISCLAIMER: Mr. Duchovny, Ms. Anderson, please report to the set. And could someone go make sure that Carter's still locked up?

DISTRIBUTION: Spookies, Gossamer, Ephemeral are a go. Anywhere else, please ask first. 

SUMMARY: Lights. Camera. Action. 

Author's note at end. 

Magic in the Making  
By EPurSeMouve  
epursemouve@goplay.com  
http://www.goplay.com/epursemouve/

FADE IN. 

INT. TERMINAL 1, LOS ANGELES INT'L -- SPRING 2000 -- LATE AFTERNOON

Scully stamped one ruined pump in anger, and moved away from the monitors. Mulder would have followed, but he was transfixed by the flashing icon that had gotten her in such a temper. 

DELAYED *blink* DELAYED *blink* DELAYED.....

He wasn't exactly clear on why Scully was so upset - they'd had delayed flights before, and she had been the one to keep him calm - not vice versa. Then again, usually they'd been on their way to a case, and he'd been antsy to get on the move. This time, they were going home, and there wasn't anything waiting for them there. 

Except, for her, a bath and a change of clean clothes. Actually, when he thought about it, it started to make more sense. The case hadn't been a difficult one - but Scully's wardrobe had taken enough hits to make her antsy for a return to her clothing-stuffed closet. 

Finally, realizing that staring at the listing for their delayed flight wasn't going to make it stop blinking, he rejoined Scully, who had claimed a spot among the tourists by the large bay windows overlooking the runway. Directly in between the gate and ticket counter, they could be first to annoy the airline representatives or first in line to board. Strategically excellent. 

She was perched precariously on the edge of her roller bag, legs crossed, one foot twitching violently. A low mumble escaped her lips. 

He took his life in his hands and leaned in close. "What was that, Scully?" 

Her eyes froze on his. "Of all the airports, in all the cities, in all the world," she growled. "It had to be LAX." 

CUT TO:

EXT. FOX STUDIO LOT -- DAY -- SEVENTEEN MONTHS EARLIER

Take 37 of the climax of "The Lazarus Bowl," and the set up needed to be re-set-up, the assistant director was screaming about the boom line, and Garry Shandling and his manicurist were in hushed consultation over a dangerous bowl-throwing maneuver. Mulder and Scully decided to get some air. 

"Look at this, Scully!" Mulder exclaimed, guiding her enthusiastically towards a "newsstand" on the NYC street set. "Real copies of the New York Post! Want a souvenir?" 

She leaned over, wrinkling her nose at the crinkled, stained newsprint. "Mulder, these are from 1995." 

He grinned conspiratorially. "Even better." 

She pulled him away from the rack of papers and went to inspect the fake subway station entrance, covered with half-peeled stickers and notices. "Almost like the real thing," she mumbled to herself. 

"But better," Mulder said. "Would you look at that sky?" 

She looked. "They certainly don't have smog like that in New York." 

"You gotta get more into this, Scully. C'mon, let's go explore." 

Scully looked nervous. She'd looked nervous during this entire trip, completely out of her element. He kept wondering what would have to happen before she would relax a bit more. "I really don't want to get in trouble, Mulder," she said. "Let's just go back to the set." 

"The entire 20th Century Fox lot at our feet, and you want to turn tail? We have every right to be here - all we have to do is act like it, and we'll be fine. C'mon, let's go see some magic in the making." 

Her shoulders sagged, and Mulder knew she was going to cave. "They're just movies," she protested weakly. 

"Ten million people in this town wouldn't agree." And with that, he spun around and began to stride quickly down the street, acting just like he belonged there. 

Her own hurried jog, while catching her up to him, did not quite give the same impression. 

CUT TO:

INT. TERMINAL 1, LAX -- LATE AFTERNOON -- SAME 

Scully was growling at him. Clearly, this was a red alert situation, only fixable by puppy-dog eyes and acting like a decent human being. He quickly tried to think of something to apologize for. 

"I'm sorry about your shoes, Scully. If I had known..." 

She looked at him, and her expression softened, just a bit. "If you had known that frat boy was going to throw up on my shoes last night and that the heels of my extra pair were going to snap off this morning, we'd have to open an X-File on you," she weakly joked. 

"You'd still have my record beat, though." He flinched as the words escaped his lips. Bad memories there, Mulder. Not the right thing to say. 

She sighed, and leaned her head against the window. "I just want to go home," she murmured. "It always takes so long to get home from here." 

"That's just because of the time zones," he said. 

The sun was beginning to descend towards the horizon, and the terminal was slowly being saturated with radiant orange light. Scully's thin frame, her face cast with shadows, stood out against it in brilliant chiaroscuro effect. 

It would have been a great scene in a movie. 

CUT TO:

EXT. FOX STUDIO LOT -- DAY -- SAME

They had wandered past the commissary in near silence, mouths slightly agape at all the action surrounding them - golf carts moving celebrities to and from the sets, men pushing trolleys loaded with lights, cables, and boxes marked DANGEROUS - all under the proud gaze of the massive murals in tribute to Fox's past triumphs. "The Sound of Music." "The Simpsons." "Star Wars." 

Mulder had had too much reality recently. Slight surreality made for a pleasant change. 

He was suddenly intrigued by all the closed doors, especially the ones with red lights mounted above them. At random, he chose one and tried the knob, only to have Scully's hand fly out to still his. 

"Mulder! We don't know what's going on in there!" 

He shrugged. "Nothing much, I bet." 

He opened the door and crept inside, knowing that, for curiosity's sake alone, she would be right behind him. 

CUT TO:

INT. TERMINAL 1, LAX -- LATE AFTERNOON -- SAME

"Why California, Mulder?" Scully asked at last, moving to sit upright again. 

He was startled by the question. "What do you mean, exactly?" 

She waved her hands around as if that explained everything. "California. Los Angeles especially. It used to be that we only came out to this region once or twice a year, at most. But this year, we've gone to Orange County, Sacramento, San Francisco, -"

"L.A.," he finished for her. 

"L.A. several times. Santa Monica, Inland Empire, Willow Park. And I just don't understand this sudden glut of cross-country trips. Is there something going on that you're not telling me about?" 

Mulder bit his lip. 

CUT TO:

INT. FOX STUDIO SOUNDSTAGE 42 -- DAY -- SAME

It was dark inside, and Mulder's eyes refused to adjust right away, so at first, all he could see was flashes of fire and the movement of shadows. But as he took a few semi-blind steps forward, stepping carefully when his feet came in contact with cords and cables, things began to focus... 

The room was something out of a medieval nightmare, torches burning and cauldrons bubbling and robed druids milling about, save one, who stood behind a giant altar and was holding a fiercely jagged, bloodstained knife over the prone figure of a naked man. Taking a deep breath before stabbing downwards, the druid... 

...looked up, dropping the knife quickly as he scurried backwards. "Dude, watch it!" he exclaimed. 

Thanks to horrified instinct, Mulder had only needed one second to draw his gun. 

It was only when Scully shook his shoulder hard that he saw the cameras and crew. 

Embarrassed, he quickly holstered his gun and began mumbling apologies, though the staring eyes quickly lost interest in him as the naked man on the altar started to ask about his close-up. As the stage returned to normal, Scully grabbed his arm to silently drag him away. 

CUT TO:

INT. TERMINAL 1, LAX -- LATE AFTERNOON -- SAME

"I mean, really Mulder, it wasn't like this case really needed investigation. A bunch of UCLA fraternity brothers trying to conjure up the devil? Patently ridiculous."

He tried to mount some sort of defense. "Frat boys take their football seriously, Scully. You remember college, right?" 

Her stare turned even icier. "I don't think I remember any fraternities practicing inaccurate Satanic rituals in order to defeat their rival school. And I certainly don't remember it lapsing into being a way of finding nubile virgins for the senior brothers," Scully said. "We could have made three phone calls and solved this case from DC. And I would not be wearing vomit-stained shoes while waiting for a delayed flight that may never arrive at an airport I do not care for."

Mulder decided to give up the defensive stance, and retreat like crazy. "The Hare Krishnas aren't that bad, once you give them some money," he mumbled. 

"You still haven't offered a decent explanation." Her arms were crossed now, along with her legs, and her much-abused navy pump was dangling precariously from the toes of her bouncing foot. 

Mulder stared blankly at the shoe, watching it nearly slip off her foot and slide back again, waiting for the one perfect answer to her question to appear in his mind. 

But waiting wasn't working. 

CUT TO:

INT. FOX STUDIO SOUNDSTAGE 42 -- DAY -- SAME

Scully was trying to guide them towards a swift getaway, but they seemed to have misplaced the door they entered through, and exits were not obvious in the dungeon-like environment. Finally, she found a unlocked door, and pulled them both through it. 

The second they achieved privacy, Scully began to chuckle. "That killer instinct of yours, Mulder..." 

He shrugged, uncomfortable with being wrong. "Not my fault the guy on the altar looked like Skinner." 

That only made her laugh harder. "Fake blood on a fake knife..." she choked out. 

He took a moment to regard their new surroundings - a high-ceilinged, narrow room, crowded with shelves, dimly lit by the beams of sunlight that could penetrate the high, dusty windows. Given the multitude of alien masks, roller skates, blaster guns, and umbrellas, among other things, he guessed that it was a prop closet of some kind. 

If a pipe bomb had been hidden in the piles of paraphernalia, curiosity would have killed the Mulder. He poked around, intrigued by the sheer volume and variety of stuff needed by a major motion picture studio. Scully soon calmed down enough to join him. 

"Just like Fred Astaire," she murmured as she pulled out a dusty top hat, offering it to him as she continued to dig around. "This is incredible. You could build entire worlds with this stuff." 

Mulder brushed most of the dust off the hat, perching it gingerly on his head. "If I'm Fred Astaire, then who does that make you?" 

But she wasn't listening. Instead, she was carefully extricating something long and silver from behind a pile of papier-mache fruit. At first, Mulder thought it was a fairy wand, but the white rubber stoppers on the ends disabused that notion. 

Scully cradled the majorette's baton in both hands for a minute, carefully studying it before shifting it to her right hand. Clumsily, she weaved it through her fingers, slowly letting it move from one knuckle to the next. And then... 

Mulder watched, dumbfounded, as she began to pick up speed and the baton danced around her fingers, shining brightly as it defied gravity and swished around the back of her hand once, twice, before flying up into the air, whirling faster until it resembled a flying disc, crashing to Earth. When it precisely and gently landed in her palm, Mulder blinked, completely awed. Spellbound. 

There was an awkward silence between them as Mulder gaped and Scully smiled uncertainly. "Tenth grade," she said at last. "Corpus Christi Naval Base. All the cool kids were in marching band, and I couldn't play an instrument." 

"You're good," he stammered, and her smile became less uncertain, her teeth gleaming. For the first time since they had arrived in L.A., she seemed at ease. 

And he had a moment, a moment straight from a cheesy melodrama or an episode of The Simpsons, when the heavens parted and angels sang and a bright spotlight of enlightenment flashed down upon him. 

Actually, all that happened was that the haze outside seemed to clear a bit, and a ray of dusty sunshine became caught in Scully's hair, lightening the normally dark auburn and highlighting some bright red streaks. 

Good enough. 

The moment stretched too long, and was abruptly broken by a loud and harsh sneeze from Scully. Without saying anything, they each replaced their props and moved back out into the warm Los Angeles noontime. 

As they walked back to the Lazarus Bowl soundstage, they kept closer together, their arms brushing against one another with every step. And with each gentle contact, a single thought reverberated through Mulder's mind: 

Scully surprised me. 

Neat. 

CUT TO:

INT. TERMINAL 1, LAX -- LATE AFTERNOON -- SAME

In the face of her fierce, questioning stare, Mulder decided his safest route was to make excuses. "All the cases we investigate, Scully, are completely valid X-Files. The fact that we've been spending more time in California than usual is simply coincidence. This is where the cases have been. So that's why we're here." 

"If coincidences are coincidences, why do they always feel so contrived?" she replied coolly, quoting his own dusty words back at him. 

He sighed. "I never got a good answer to that question, Scully, and I don't have one for you. But at any rate..." he said, shrugging, "doesn't it feel nice to get a little sun?" 

He could have dreamed up a hundred different fantasies around Scully - full of magic and seduction and passion. Scully giving whistling lessons, putting her lips together to blow. Scully's stockinged leg, seductively daring to stretch across the screen. Scully floating high above him, a vivid field of strategically placed rose petals surrounding her. 

But instead, he could only call to life the memory of Scully's hair, flaring in the sunlight. Locations varied. In the prop closet, as she manipulated the baton into pirouettes. In the Santa Monica police station hallway, a few months ago, as she slowly twisted her arm around 360 degrees, showing him magic. And right now, in this terminal, saturated with the brilliant embers of the sunset, her pale skin contrasting sharply with the fire surrounding her. 

The sun didn't shine like that in DC. At least, not in his eyes. 

She sighed, breaking his concentration but gaining his attention. "Mulder, you're saying that we've flown across the country seven times this year - strictly for the weather?" 

The memory of the graves behind Santa's North Pole Village shuddered through him. "Not always." 

Her eyes grew softer as he watched her remember, too. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I have no right..." 

He crouched beside her, resting a hand upon her shoulder. "You have every right. And..." he spoke uncertainly "...maybe you're not completely wrong, either." 

She regarded him steadily, almost beginning to catch on. "Well," she said at last. "It does make for an interesting change of pace." 

He smiled. "Coming to California?"

"No. Me being not being completely wrong." 

He stroked her shoulder, feeling a moment of complete honesty coming on. "Don't sell yourself short," was all that escaped, however. 

She surprised him by leaning into his touch, resting quietly for just a moment, her eyes gently conversing with his own as she rested her head against his hand and let him take over most of her neck's work. 

Magic. 

"I suppose we're coming out for the premiere, then?" she said at last. 

"The premiere of what?" he asked blankly. 

"The movie. 'The Lazarus Bowl'. We've got tickets, after all." 

He briefly imagined Scully, all dressed up, waiting for him in the lobby of whatever hotel they ended up at, the light catching in her hair and her eyes lighting up with a smile as she saw him approach. 

He would probably never know what made this woman's smile so miraculous. But he was always game for investigation. 

Mulder grinned. "I don't see why not." 

MUSIC SWELLS 

CARD READS: "The End"

FADE TO BLACK. 

CREDITS ROLL. 

This was a Scullyfic improv challenge, with the following five elements: 

-Scully twirling a majorette's baton (in full view of Mulder, naturally). (Shannon)

-Fake blood. (Robbie)

-Mulder has a dream about Scully ala American Beauty; where she's floating above him, nude, all the "important parts" covered by rose petals flowing toward him . . . (Brynna)

-Nekkid Skinner (Kim)

-A cauldron. (Lore)

I'd like to thank them for providing the means for a good, old-fashioned film-geek-out. g I'd also like to thank CazQ, Jodi and wen for fantastic betas, and nod cheerfully at Sarah, Jess, Lucy and Amanda, who are great betas but even better friends. All details regarding LAX Terminal 1 and the Fox studio lot are accurate, except for the prop closet, which is a figment of my imagination - as is the movie being shot on Soundstage 42. 

Films referenced: "Casablanca" (1942), "To Have and Have Not" (1944), "The Graduate" (1968), "American Beauty" (1999). 

Have your people call my people. We'll do lunch. Comments to epursemouve@goplay.com. 

And thanks for reading. 


End file.
